The process of generating analog audio recordings on cylinders or disks has been known since the start of the 20th century. Over this history, different materials for storing these recordings have come and gone; however, vinyl has remained a standard format since its introduction in the 1930s. Sales of vinyl records reached a peak in the US in the 1970s to early 1980s, but recently the format has seen resurgence in popularity.
The vinyl disk format was originally developed because of its capacity for mass production using a stamping process. The process begins with an audio recording. The audio recording is transcribed using a lathe to cut a groove in a soft material such as acetate or nitrocellulose. This transcribed audio is the closest to the original, and is termed the master cut or master lacquer. The process of producing the consumer vinyl record involves several additional steps, or “generations.” The master lacquer is first coated, generally with a layer of silver, and electroplated, using a metal such as nickel, to make a metal master. The metal master, or “father”, is a negative of the original master lacquer. The father plate is too fragile to undergo the stamping process, therefore additional steps, or generations, must be performed in order to form a stamper that can withstand the stamping process to form the vinyl records. Accordingly, the father plate is then oxidized and plated again. The resulting plate, the “mother”, is then separated from the father. The mother plate is a metal duplicate of the original master lacquer. The mother plate is then oxidized and plated to make stamper plates, which are negatives of the original master lacquer. The stamper plates are then used to imprint the recording onto heated vinyl blanks. Generally, one father plate can produce about 10 mother plates, one mother plate can produce about 10 stampers, and one stamper can produce about 1000 vinyl records. Thus, from production of the master, there are several additional steps, or “generations”, required to yield a final product. Production or manufacturing defects arising during these extra generations yield diminished quality further removing the vinyl products from the original audio recording.